Ms Margaret Lennon:

I would just like to reply to two points - one made by Deputy Kenny and one made by Deputy O'Reilly. Deputy Kenny asked whether the new SOP has been generated to circumvent the AON under the Disability Act, or to water down that legal responsibility. Looking at the timeline, the High Court gave permission to proceed in July 2017 for a challenge on the failure to carry out an assessment of need or to finish it on time. The HSE announced via press release on 16 August 2017 that it was doing a review on ASDs. In correspondence with me, the team tasked with generating the new SOP mentioned that it used the autism review submissions to generate the SOP.

Deputy Kenny asked whether the new SOP is being used. We have been informed that it has been deferred. I have looked at all of these documents quickly. There were 30 comments as of last night. I will just read one or two into the record. These are all current. They were made in the past couple of weeks since it was deferred.

Hi, I just want to let you know that the assessment officer sent me a letter to state that she was withdrawing my son from the AON facility. I wrote to her via email explaining why this was unacceptable and she said that, because of a legal case, they are now doing away with the assessment of need. I wrote to her repeatedly. I did the form with her over the phone [apparently she was asked to complete a new form] thinking I was finally getting somewhere and got speech and language, who recommended a psychological assessment. I brought my daughter previously to [she mentions the service] and it still upsets me the way we were treated. My Dad had just died but they told me before any assessment like the ADOS [Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule] took place that my daughter was not autistic. I have had her assessed privately and she is classically autistic.

That is what she was told. Without carrying out an AON, HSE determined that this child did not have ASD but no explanation was given for her behaviours other than poor parenting.

It continues:

So there is no way I am letting this happen to my second child. I would love to have OT intervention, physiotherapy and so forth if it exists. I wonder how many families have they done this to, how many people just accept it and why doesn't our Government actually care about its little people. I know that I am lucky. We are working and I have made many sacrifices so we can go privately when we have to. I do not understand why everything is such a battle.

I will read one more comment:

I was one of the parents that was contacted by telephone by an assessment of need officer and told that I needed to go through the new form over the telephone. I feel so cheated now. What do I do? I applied for an assessment of need before Christmas 2017 and it was officially to start on 10 February.

I am conscious there are time constraints but we have hundreds of the same comments.